QE 4

As I mentioned in that last post, the U.S. economic expansion is now the third-longest since World War Two.

And if the next recession hits on President Trump’s watch, a number of Americans will blame him for it.

The same goes for a stock market crash.

Peter Schiff, the CEO of Euro Pacific Capital, touched on this in a recent interview with the folks over at Financial Argument, “a daily show that will cover issues surrounding the economic collapse.” From their exchange posted on YouTube.com on November 26:

FA: I wanted to start off with the stock market. I mean, we’re seeing it continually move up. And before Trump was President, he was out there saying that there’s bubbles in the stock market, there’s bubbles in housing, there’s bubbles everywhere. Now that he’s President, he really doesn’t say this anymore. And he’s saying that the stock market’s going up because of me, and it’s fantastic. When you look at the stock market, does it make any sense whatsoever, and can actually Trump take credit for this?
SCHIFF: Well, first of all, there was a bubble before Trump was elected. Clearly. And Trump pointed that out himself. That was one of his talking points on his stump speeches. There was a big, fat ugly bubble in the stock market. And if Trump wants to take credit for the bubble getting bigger, I would agree. I think there has been a lot of optimism, a lot of enthusiasm, among investors. And that has resulted in higher stock prices. But I think where Trump is getting into trouble is by claiming that the stock market going up is no longer a bubble. That now this is just a real bull market that reflects the improvement of the fundamentals since he’s been elected. That’s not the case. This is simply more air into the same bubble. And this bubble is going to burst, and I think unfortunately now that Trump has branded it- just like it was one of his buildings, he’s put the big “Trump” marker on it- when this thing pops, he’s going to have to take the blame.

Schiff, who correctly-called the housing bust and economic crisis last decade, speculated on the Federal Reserve’s future moves and a coming recession. From the discussion:

FA: The Fed is keeping everything steady as she goes right now. They’re not raising interest rates. They’re slowly unwinding their balance sheet. Are they backed into a corner?
SCHIFF: They’re not slowing unwinding their balance sheet. They talked about slowly unwinding the balance sheet. But the balance sheet hasn’t unwound at all. It’s as high as it’s ever been. I think this is all a bunch of talk. There’s no way they’re going to be able to shrink that balance sheet in any significant way because it would drive interest rates up and weaken the economy and affect asset prices. In fact, I think the next major move in the Fed’s balance sheet is another big leg up when they have to launch the next round of quantitative easing. Obviously, the U.S. economy is going to go back into recession. I think we’d already be in recession had Trump not won the election. And I do think that the enthusiasm surrounding his victory and the optimism, I think, probably postponed the recession for a year or two. But, it’s going to hit, and then, how is the Fed going to respond? Well, we know. In fact, Donald Trump has appointed a new Fed chairman to follow Janet Yellen that he’s confident will do exactly what she did. Or exactly what Bernanke did. Which is slash interest rates, and print more money, and buy government bonds, and buy mortgages, or buy whatever they have to buy to keep everything from imploding.

Here’s what Schiff had to say about a potential economic crisis in 2018:

I do think we’re going to see a downturn. We could see a crisis, but chances are the crisis itself will happen later.

(Editor’s note: A qualified professional should be consulted prior to making a financial decision based on material found in this weblog. If this recommended course of action is not pursued, then it must be understood that the decision is the reader’s and the reader’s alone. Christopher E. Hill, the creator/Editor of this blog, is not responsible for any personal liability, loss, or risk incurred as a consequence of the use and application, either directly or indirectly, of any information presented on the site.)

Here’s what the Fed is trying to do. They need to normalize the balance sheet, meaning get the balance sheet down to maybe $2 trillion. Right now it’s over four. It’s coming down a little bit. It’s a long way between $4 trillion and $2 trillion, bearing in mind that in 2008 it was $800 billion. And they need to normalize interest rates, which means getting from 1% to 3-3.25%. But the question is how do you get there? So the Fed is trying to raise interest rates 25 basis points, four times a year every March, June, September, and December through 2019 to get to 3.5% or so and bring down the balance sheet. They’re going to be reducing it by the end of next year by $50 billion a month, which is a lot. And there are some estimates that the impact of that is the equivalent of a 1 percentage point rate hike, because it is a form of tightening- you’re reducing the money supply. You’re reducing base money. The question is, why are they doing it? Why are they doing it in kind of a relatively weak economy? The answer is they’re preparing for the next recession. They want to run the playbook again, which is cut rates and then go to QE4 and QE5. How do you prepare for the next recession without causing the recession you’re preparing to cure? That’s the finesse, that’s the problem, and I don’t think they can do it.

(Editor’s note: Bold added for emphasis)

The current U.S. economic expansion is now the third-longest since World War Two.

“The Fed is trying to prepare for the next recession without causing it”
YouTube Video

(Editor’s note: A qualified professional should be consulted prior to making a financial decision based on material found in this weblog. If this recommended course of action is not pursued, then it must be understood that the decision is the reader’s and the reader’s alone. Christopher E. Hill, the creator/Editor of this blog, is not responsible for any personal liability, loss, or risk incurred as a consequence of the use and application, either directly or indirectly, of any information presented on the site.)

Turning to “crash prophet” Peter Schiff this afternoon, the CEO of Euro Pacific Capital was recently interviewed by Scott Gamm of TheStreet. Schiff, who correctly-called the housing bust and economic crisis last decade, echoed colleague Jim Rogers in warning about a future bear market in U.S. stocks. From the exchange:

THESTREET: Peter, it’s been an incredible record run here. And the levels we’re seeing now even with this slight pullback were record highs not too long ago. So, what do you say?
SCHIFF: Well, the bubble keeps getting bigger. Donald Trump called it himself as a candidate. He said it was a big, fat, ugly bubble. He was right then. He’s wrong now because now he denies it’s a bubble because he’s now the President and so it’s his bubble. And so he’d rather it be a bull market. But the valuations here really are extreme. The complacency is also extreme. I mean, investors are willing to pay very high prices and have very little worry (chuckle) that the stock market is going to go down. And people have very short memories. I’ve mean, we’ve had two major 50 percent declines in the stock market this century, since 2000. So we’ve had the market cut in half twice and it can easily happen again, yet nobody seems concerned. And I think one of the reasons is because the last two times the market went down the Fed was able to bail out investors to bet on one bubble by inflating a bigger one. So a lot of investors may have been conditioned to believe that even if the market implodes, if they hold on, they’ll get their money back. But the third time might not be the charm. It’s possible that the Fed can’t blow a bubble big enough to bail out investors this time…
THESTREET: So do you think that tide kind of turns in the next year?
SCHIFF: Hey, I don’t know. There’s no way to know. I mean, I think Donald Trump has nominated somebody who will try and do his best to keep the air in the bubble- cut rates, QE 4. But at some point, the market forces will overwhelm the Fed. The market will go down. And if it doesn’t go down the dollar will collapse instead. But either way, you’re going to see the real value of U.S. stocks come way down, whether it happens nominally or not. And I have a feeling that if the Fed prints enough money to prevent the market from going down dramatically, then the real losses will be even bigger because of the implosion of the U.S. dollar.

People who are in the U.S. market are overlooking much better returns from much better valuation levels that are happening overseas. So I think people should take advantage of the overpriced U.S. stock market, the overpriced U.S. dollar, and sell, and move money abroad. Get into the international markets- developed and emerging. Get into the commodities space. Look at oil hitting a new two-year high again today. This is going on in commodities across the board. We are coming off of major bear markets. We’re in the infancy of new bull markets. And I think the dollar is about to get killed. This is the first year in many years now that the dollar is down. But I think it’s the first of many. I think the dollar could fall for the next 5 to 10 years in a major, major bear market taking the dollar to all-time record lows. And this will enable enormous profits for people who are invested outside the U.S. in the right currencies, the right assets, the right companies. That’s what I think we’re doing with our clients at Euro Pacific Capital and that’s certainly what I’m doing with my own money.

(Editor’s note: A qualified professional should be consulted prior to making a financial decision based on material found in this weblog. If this recommended course of action is not pursued, then it must be understood that the decision is the reader’s and the reader’s alone. Christopher E. Hill, the creator/Editor of this blog, is not responsible for any personal liability, loss, or risk incurred as a consequence of the use and application, either directly or indirectly, of any information presented on the site.)

Euro Pacific Capital CEO Peter Schiff, who correctly-called the housing bust and economic crisis last decade, just published a new entry to his Peter Schiff’s Gold Videocast vlog on YouTube.com. Schiff talked about what’s behind the recent take-off in precious metal prices. From last Friday:

What’s really behind the metals rise is not what’s happening in Europe, but I believe what’s going to be happening here in the United States, because I believe the Federal Reserve is going to use the turmoil in the markets that followed that [“Brexit”] vote as the excuse that it’s been waiting for, not only not to raise rates, but to cut rates and to launch QE 4. In fact, that is the main reason, I believe, that the markets have recovered somewhat from their Brexit-related losses. Because if you look at the financial markets, they are now pricing in for the first time a higher probability that the next move by the Federal Reserve will be to cut rates, not to raise them. Now remember, I’ve been saying this the whole time. Ever since the Federal Reserve raised rates in December I was saying the likelihood was that the next move would be a cut and not another increase…

As we continue to get more weak economic data that continues to surprise all the bulls who are expecting strong data, it’s not going to be long before the talk of rate hikes is really replaced first by the talk of rate cuts, and then by actual cuts. And of course since there’s not a lot of room for the Fed to cut rates because it never really raised them, the real monetary stimulus is going to come from an enormous round of quantitative easing…

The reason there was such a violent reaction in the financial markets to Brexit wasn’t because Brexit is so terrible, it just shows you how precarious the global financial system is. It’s all perched upon these props of cheap money and central banking. It’s all based on hype and hope and confidence. And when something shakes the confidence, you see the immediate result. The central bankers are going to do everything they can to keep this bubble from deflating. And that means more money printing not only here but around the world. And all the naysayers, all the guys that were saying “Oh, Peter Schiff was wrong,” “The Fed was right,” “Bernanke was right- he was the hero,” “Paul Krugman was right- there is no inflation.” All the people who had these premature victory laps are going to have a lot of egg on their face. But in the meantime, there isn’t a lot of time left for people to buy gold and silver while there are still people foolish enough to sell it…

(Editor’s note: A qualified professional should be consulted prior to making a financial decision based on material found in this weblog. If this recommended course of action is not pursued, then it must be understood that the decision is the reader’s and the reader’s alone. The creator/Editor of this blog is not responsible for any personal liability, loss, or risk incurred as a consequence of the use and application, either directly or indirectly, of any information contained herein.)

Swiss-born investment advisor/money manager Marc Faber was on the phone with the FOX Business Network this morning. The publisher of the monthly investment newsletter The Gloom Boom & Doom Report discussed additional intervention by the world’s central banks in the wake of the “Brexit” vote and more quantitative easing in the United States. “Doctor Doom,” as the financial news media likes to call him, told viewers:

Regarding the confidence, I’m not so sure, because if you look at the performance of Treasury bonds, they would indicate that there is a sense that the economy’s weakening and that there are problems in the financial system. Also if you look at the performance of European bank stocks, they are horrible performers. So the confidence coming back- I’m not sure. But clearly Brexit means more money printing by central banks. They will continue to intervene. And I think before the year end we’ll have some form of QE4 in the U.S…

I think the problem will be if there are no additional QEs around the world- not just in the U.S. but around the world- is that asset prices will no longer go up and we’ve seen this already in London properties, in New York properties- and this will have a negative impact on the economy. The recession in my view is not going to come from really the economy per se, but from asset price deflation…

(Editor’s note: A qualified professional should be consulted prior to making a financial decision based on material found in this weblog. If this recommended course of action is not pursued, then it must be understood that the decision is the reader’s and the reader’s alone. The creator/Editor of this blog is not responsible for any personal liability, loss, or risk incurred as a consequence of the use and application, either directly or indirectly, of any information contained herein.)

This past weekend, Peter Schiff, the CEO of Euro Pacific Capital, uploaded a new video to The Schiff Report on YouTube.com. Schiff, who correctly-called last decade’s housing crash and recent global economic crisis, noted that it had been a while since he released an entry to this vlog. As such, Schiff talked about a number of subjects. He advised viewers:

I think that we’re already in recession. It’s just that the Fed hasn’t acknowledged it yet. And one of the reasons that Janet Yellen is so reluctant to come clean and acknowledge how weak the economy is because number one, it undercuts President Obama, who’s going around the world claiming the United States has the strongest economy in the world when we’re, in fact, in recession. Even Europe is growing faster than the United States. Yet somehow President Obama wants to claim credit for saving the U.S. economy and producing all this non-existent growth. While the Federal Reserve doesn’t want to peddle fiction, in the words of President Obama. So it doesn’t want to basically undercut his message of an economic recovery by acknowledging that it’s over. And for the same reason the Fed doesn’t want to take the wind out of Hillary Clinton’s sails, because she wants to sail into the White House based on the prosperity that was supposedly created by President Obama. So Janet Yellen doesn’t want to undercut her message because she wants to run on four more years. And the Fed can’t admit that we’re back in recession. And also the Federal Reserve has already claimed credit for success. They want to pretend that their monetary policies created this real recovery. They don’t want to acknowledge it ended. So they have their own credibility on the line. They want to pretend that the economy is still recovering…

Meanwhile, I think it’s the United States that’s going to launch a whole new round of easing. I think they’re going to be lowering interest rates back to zero and launching QE 4. The only unknown is whether they’re going to do it before or after the election. And it depends on how quickly the economy or the markets unravel, because Yellen would rather have to come to the rescue of the economy before the election, because admitting that it needs rescuing is going to be a problem for Hillary Clinton and it’s going to help Donald Trump. And I know Janet Yellen does not want to see Donald Trump as the next President. So that is the fine line that she is trying to walk. Whether she admits the economy is weak enough and needs stimulus, or whether she puts the stimulus anyway because it’s so weak she’s worried about the economy being too deep in a recession when voters go to the polls. And in that case, the Federal Reserve simply has to come up with some kind of excuse to try and blame things on the global economy. But the problem is, the situation is already turning around in the global economy. The real problem in the global economy is the United States.

And if you look at the action in the markets, people are just starting to figure this out. But it’s still kind of like a deer in the headlight moment. I think a lot of traders, a lot of people who are managing money on Wall Street. They’ve been getting beaten up this year. A lot of the big players are losing a lot of money because they are positioned for the wrong outcome. Everybody has believed this narrative of a legitimate recovery, where the Federal Reserve will be normalizing interest rates. I’ve known all along that that was a farce. That the economy hadn’t recovered. That the Federal Reserve had in fact prevented a recovery. That the U.S. economy is actually in worse shape now than it was in 2008. So rather than a recovery, we actually got sicker. We just covered up some of the symptoms. But we have exacerbated all of the problems. And President Obama- he’s hasn’t presided over a recovery at all. He’s presided over a bigger bubble than his predecessor. And in fact, the economic disaster that awaits his successor, is going to be much bigger than the disaster he inherited from George Bush. And he spent the entire last eight years of his presidency blaming everything bad on Bush, and claiming that he got us out of that mess. Well, the reality is, he has gotten us into a much bigger mess. And whoever succeeds him is going to have to deal with it. It will be interesting though if its ends up being Hillary Clinton. Is she going to still blame the disaster on Bush, and just forget about the eight years of Obama, and try and blame the recession she is going to inherit as some kind of leftover, residual recession from the Bush years? As if President Obama had actually nothing to do with it, when his policies simply exacerbated all the problems. He just double-downed on the failed policies of Bush. But then he added a lot of other policies that were even worse. And that is why this so-called recovery has been the weakest recovery that we have ever had. And, in fact, if the truth were known. If the numbers weren’t cooked by artificially-low inflation rates, we would have a much weaker recovery or we’d have no recovery at all. But the people who are voting for Bernie Sanders or voting for Donald Trump- they are living in this recession. This phony recovery that President Obama and the Federal Reserve want to take credit for.

Schiff hasn’t deviated from his long-held belief of a coming dollar crisis. He warned viewers:

This is going to be a major, major currency crisis. And unfortunately, the currency crisis/economic crisis that’s coming- maybe it’ll start before Obama leaves office, just like the financial crisis blew up on the last year of the Bush administration. Or maybe it will be an inaugural present for Donald Trump or for Hillary Clinton. But this crisis that’s coming is going to be much worse, much worse, on an order of magnitude, kind of like a Richter scale-worse, than the financial crisis of 2008. Because the combination of bad fiscal policy and bad monetary policy, particularly monetary policy but also things like ObamaCare- all the things that the Federal Reserve and the federal government have done over the last seven or eight years have made the problem so much worse. Meanwhile, the debt has gotten so much bigger. The leverage has gotten so much bigger. The number of players, the financial markets, are so much more out-of-whack based on a false expectation of what is likely to happen. I mean, this is worse- these are bigger imbalances than we had leading up to the 2008 financial crisis. Fewer people are prepared for what’s going to happen. And when it does, it’s going to be a major economic upheaval, much worse than what we had in ’08 from the perspective of the average American… When you have a currency crisis, when the dollar is collapsing, when the cost of living is going up, and then people start to lose these part-time jobs- you lose your job and the cost of living goes up. This is going to be much worse.

(Editor’s notes: Info added to “Crash Prophets” page; a qualified professional should be consulted prior to making a financial decision based on material found in this weblog. If this recommended course of action is not pursued, then it must be understood that the decision is the reader’s and the reader’s alone. The creator/Editor of this blog is not responsible for any personal liability, loss, or risk incurred as a consequence of the use and application, either directly or indirectly, of any information contained herein.)

Speaking of stocks, one “crash prophet” who I haven’t checked in on for a while is Mike Maloney, a precious metals expert, advisor, and author who runs California-based GoldSilver.com (specializing in the instruction of precious metals investing and providing world-class gold/silver dealer services). Late Monday night I watched a video he published on March 29 about where he thought the U.S. stock market was at and where he predicted it was heading. Maloney told viewers:

I just wanted to ask the really big question- have the stock markets topped and has a crash already begun? And if it is a crash, how bad will it be? And here’s some of the evidence that I was looking at…

We’ve created something called a classic dome top. And when you look back in history, this is probably going to be the top of the market just before the greatest crash in history. That’s where I believe that we are…

(Editor’s note: Bold added for emphasis)

Not surprisingly, Maloney thinks precious metals will perform well in such a scenario.

Disturbing stuff. But Maloney (as usual) makes a strong case for his forecast.

However, I can’t help but wonder if QE 4 or its equivalent isn’t already warming up in the bullpen to keep asset prices aloft or even send them higher at least until the November election is done and another Democrat is in the White House.

(Editor’s note: A qualified professional should be consulted prior to making a financial decision based on information found in this weblog. If this recommended course of action is not pursued, then it must be understood that the decision is the reader’s and the reader’s alone. Christopher E. Hill, the creator/Editor of this blog, is not responsible for any personal liability, loss, or risk incurred as a consequence of the use and application, either directly or indirectly, of any information presented on the site.)